Where in the world is tennis the most popular?

I went to Spain last summer and I expected tennis to be pretty popular considering they have the most players in the top 100, but I found that it wasn't much more popular there than it is in the US today. Everyone knew Nadal, some knew Ferrer, but hardly any other players. Football was much more popular. Does anyone know where in the world tennis is the most popular?

I'm sure it must be more popular in Spain than in the US. What gave you the impression it isn't?.

Tennis is very popular in South America. At least any big news - say slam finals - are mentioned in the front page of newspapers. Something like the winner of a masters will be on news on TV, when it was even rumoured Nadal was going to come here it was in the front page of newspapers.

When Marcelo Ríos would play a big match, you could literally hardnly find people on the streets, kinda like what happens when there's a big football match going on.

IMO, Australia, England and France would be the top 3 and the US in a distant 4th. No coincidence these are GS countries. These are also the major equipment makers, Babalot, Dunlop, Wilson, Prince etc.

I have to disagree about Asia. Thailand might be the exception but it really has no base of support anywhere else.

It has always been pretty popular in western/central Europe. When I lived in Belgium, we had tennis on TV all the time (mid to late 90's). I don't know if it's still as popular as it used to be. Anyway, that's how I started watching.

Eurosport had very good coverage of the tennis season in those days, except for the grass season - that's when I had to switch to the BBC. But most national TV channels, either French, German or Dutch, would always cover their home tournaments even when Eurosport didn't cover them.

From my discussions with French rec players, tennis is considered the national sport of France. There's an awfully large French contingent at my club here in the States.

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It's a bit like their club football (soccer). So many good conditions and infrastructures, so much promise and talent, and yet very few results if compared to expectations and to other countries of similar capacity. It's a strange phenomenon.

I think France/Australia would be quite high. I wanna say england is up there but im not so sure people care about tennis that much here when its the non-grass season. I do think the easten european countres that dont have a big football club (im lookin at you spain) would be the best place to go for tennis fans.

When I was growing up in Yugoslavia, tennis was fairly popular and showed often on TV. I'd imagine even more so nowadays. However, still nowhere near the Soccer, Basketball, and probably still behind the Handball, Voleyball, Waterpolo.